


When Stars Align

by codenamecynic



Series: It came from the tumblr-verse [25]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, Marriage Proposal, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Same-Sex Marriage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-02-02
Packaged: 2018-05-15 08:41:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5779093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenamecynic/pseuds/codenamecynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of f/f marriage proposal fics (each chapter tagged with pairing and fandom)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Roses are Red, Violets are Expensive (Dragon Age; f!hawke/Isabela, modern AU)

**Author's Note:**

> When the SCOTUS announced their decision on same-sex marriages, I asked for celebratory prompts on tumblr. This is what's grown out of them :)

“Okay, well what about roses.  They’re supposed to mean love or some shit, right?”

“Too common.”

“Orchids?”

“Too expensive.”

“Carnations.”

“Too cheap.”

“I don’t know, hibiscus?”

“Where in the shit am I supposed to get a ton of fucking hibiscus in September?  Also they wilt too fast.”

Isabela looked over the coffee table at her fiancé and slowly raised a brow.  Hawke was ass deep in wedding magazines, their glossy pages desperately dog eared and fanned out across the carpet.  “Baby.”

“I know, I know.”  The chagrin was immediate, the wedding mania fading into the background in an instant.  Hawke raked her hands through her hair, short dark locks sticking up every which way, before dropping them helplessly into her lap with a shrug and a sigh of defeat.  “I just want it to be perfect.  We’ve been waiting so long…”

She looked perilously close to tears and Hawke _never_ cried, only deigning to weep over well-orchestrated action sequences in movies.  And fat puppies.

Carefully she pulled her boots off the coffee table and slid off the couch, hands and knees scuffing the carpet as she crawled around it and the Martha Stewart archive strewn all over the floor to sink down cross-legged at Hawke’s side.

She had never been much of one for weddings – for marriage either.  The thought of the one that went sour always hovered in the back of her mind, and for the longest time the fact that technically they _couldn’t_ just meant she never really had to think about it.  Never had to decide if it was something she really wanted.  If she could avoid making the sorts of decisions with the inconvenient byproduct of being semi-permanent, all the better, but –

Well.  Hawke wanted this so badly.  And _she_ wanted Hawke more than anything.

There were worse fates than being married to someone she was head over heels in love with.

“For what it’s worth,” she said eventually, leaning her shoulder up against Hawke’s side.  “I would marry you on the side of the road.”

“Hmph.”

“Right there on the sidewalk.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“I would so.  I would marry you on a street corner in the pouring rain in the middle of downtown rush hour traffic.”

Hawke laughed a strangled little laugh but finally came up for air, hands falling away from her face.  “That’s awful.”

“And adventurous.”  Isabela’s eyebrows waggled, the tip of her tongue poking out between parted lips.  It merited a laugh – a real laugh this time.  “But totally worth it.”

“Bela…”

“I’m serious. Cross my heart and hope to die.  We don’t have to have flowers, or music, or candles, or any of the – whatever the hell _this_ is.  The only thing I need for it to be a perfect day is _you_.”

Hawke stared at her for a long moment, as though she wasn’t sure if she was serious, as if she wasn’t sure whether she ought to laugh or cry, and settled instead for kisses.  Clever fingers wound their way into Isabela’s hair and held her close, lips fervent – but soft.  Tender.  A little shaky, like too much coffee and not enough breakfast.  Just like Hawke.  And she –

Well what could she say, really.  She was a woman in love.

“Fuck it,” Hawke said, lips against her cheek.  “Let’s just elope.”


	2. For Certain (Dragon Age; Isabela/Merrill, modern AU)

It’s a beautiful day at sea.

Well, correction – every day at sea is beautiful as far as Isabela is concerned, because every day at sea is a day she’s captain. 

Life is good as captain of her own ship.  She does what she wants, goes where she wants, sails anywhere her boat can fit - sails some places it barely does too, but that’s all part of the adventure.  The unknown of it all.  The changing tides and the shifting winds, skirting the edges of storms on just her wits and a metric shit ton of water that, fickle, beautiful and wild, can turn on her in a second and pull her under.

She loves it.  Loves it like the air she breathes, like the sun on her skin, like rum on her lips and good food in her belly.  Loves it like sex, like the roll of muscles beneath the sweating skin of a man’s bare back, like a wicked smile on the mouth of a pretty young woman.

There’s one in particular, though.

Merrill is soft growing things, all earth and flowers and new green shoots, as much as Isabela herself is salt waves and crashing surf.  There are only so many things that grow well at sea, and of course who can pin down the tide, always waxing and waning – but it works.  Somehow, some way, it works.

When Merrill steps out onto the deck, all frothy white veil over a pair of white shorts and a white tank top, Bethany’s white rubber flip flops on her feet, she knows it’s the real deal.  It’s – it’s _love_ , and she throws her head back and laughs and laughs.

There are some things she can stand to know for certain.


	3. Do It Proper (Mass Effect; Femshep/Jack)

**Do It Proper** (femshep/Jack)

The new tattoo on her back itches like crazy.

Shepard is under strict orders not to scratch, of course.  If she fucks up Jack’s work, there will be absolute hell to pay.  Which would be fun, naturally, but probably not really worth it.  Not when Jack is just as easily wooed by cheap liquor and explosions.

So she itches, and doesn’t scratch, and tries not to spend too much thought on whether or not she would even notice this underneath her hardsuit.  If maybe these civilian clothes are what bothers her, and not the tattoo at all.

It’s hard not to feel like this is the end, even sitting in Anderson’s apartment on the Citadel, the lights of the Strip below the windows twinkling on in defiance of the apocalypse.

Defiance.  That’s why she fell in love with Jack, she figures – one of the reasons, anyway.  The woman is incapable of doing anything quietly, subtly, in moderation.  There’s a big ass crater on Pragia that can attest to that.

“That’s why I’m so good for you,” Jack has said, on multiple occasions – same smug delivery every time.  “Shake things up a bit.”

As if the foundations aren’t crumbling and the world falling down.  Sometimes it feels like all she’s doing is climbing up the rubble, trying to scramble atop the heap before it topples over and crushes her.

Anyway, it’s got her… thinking.  About the future.  About how short the future could be.  Shepard’s never been much of one for personal relationships – not the kind that last, anyway.  The Normandy is the most like family she’s ever known.  The most like _home._   They might as well be pirate queens of the Terminus for all the rules they follow now, and there are days –

Well, there are days if she wonders _what if_.  Days where she lets herself ignore the nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach that says that she would be right back here anyway, fighting this same fight.  Days that she imagines a different life, a different ending, hell – maybe one with a place on some planet with enough space for she and a dog – or a couple of varren, she’s not choosy – and Jack.

She laughs.  Jack would hate it.  Bored within a month.

It doesn’t stop nagging her though, all through this brief respite.  The idea hovers in the back of her mind until they’re sitting in the kitchen and it just falls out of her mouth. 

“You wanna marry me?”

Jack’s ass is sticking out of the fridge, rummaging around for a beer.  It isn’t immediately apparent whether or not she’d even heard and Shepard really isn’t the kind of person who likes to repeat herself, so she lets it sit until Jack comes up for air, popping the cap off the bottle in a way that will totally fuck up the edge of the counter.  She takes a long drink and exhales, eyeing Shepard over the bar. 

“Would or want to?”

“Both.”  Shepard shrugs.  “Either.”

Jack cocks a brow.  “You anglin’ for a ring, Shepard?”

“You know I can’t wear jewelry under the hardsuit.  Not gonna say I haven’t thought about it, though.”

“You wanna make an honest woman out of me?” 

Leave it to Jack to try turn everything sexy, climbing right over the top of the bar to slide down into her lap.  “I think we’d need more than a wedding ring for that.”

“Sassy,” Jack admonishes, in that voice that says she approves.  But she puts down the beer, tugs the ends of Shepard’s shower-damp hair, traces the faintly glowing orange lines that cut through the underside of her jaw.  “You going soft on me, Shepard?”

Both her eyebrows lift.  “I’m already yours, way I figure.”

The kiss thrust against her lips is just like Jack – hard, fast, and hellfire.  She barely gets to kiss her back before she’s already pulled away again, glaring sharply into her face, both hands knotted into her hair, fingers shaking like they never do around a pistol.

“If you really wanna do this, you better ask me fucking properly.”

Shepard grins.  “Jack, will you fucking marry me?”

Jack laughs.  “I will marry the fucking shit out of you, Shepard.”


	4. Lucky (Dragon Age; Josephine Montilyet/Cassandra Pentaghast, modern AU)

Just a few hours until the launch of the biggest fund-raiser of her career, and Josephine still hadn't had time to put on her lucky lipstick.  Her heels click-clacked down the hall at a perilous pace, ever-present clipboard in one hand, making Cullen hustle to keep up with her.

"I wouldn't bother you normally, but I thought this really needed _your_ attention."

"That is what I'm here for!" she said, voice at a professional level of chipper, though inside she was groaning.  She had to deal with whatever the problem in the ballroom was, and then make sure the cocktails were ready, check on the chefs, and for Maker's sake - had the band already arrived?  Where was her kitchen staff?

Leliana met them as they stepped into the room, already impeccably dressed.  "Thank goodness you're here, I can't get the blasted thing to work."

Leliana never panicked, not so far as Josephine could ever remember, but something in the way she was smiling automatically made her suspicious.  "What is it, Leliana?"  She'd allowed her arm to be taken and was already being pulled toward the center of the room when suddenly all of the lights in the ballroom shut off with an audible click and the hand on her arm was gone, leaving her alone in the darkness.

"What in the-"

She scarcely had time to think of all of the things that could be going wrong in this moment, hardly a second to tabulate and cross-reference them in the spreadsheet of her mind before a single spotlight illuminated the stage at the far end of the room.  From the silence piano notes began to trickle into the air, a rustle as the heavy black stage curtain was drawn back.

Varric was sitting at the piano with a rose in his hat and his shirt unbuttoned further than was decent, throwing a wink her way as his fingers strolled the keys. 

_It's a little bit funny this feeling inside  
I'm not one of those who can easily hide_

She almost screamed out loud when he started to sing, and had to clap a hand over her mouth when the light slowly spread to reveal Dorian posing dramatically against the opposite end of the piano, mustache curled and tuxedo impeccably pressed.

_I don't have much money but boy if I did  
I'd buy a big house where we both could live_

Bull joined him a second later, huge shoulders nearly bursting the seams of his jacket as he flung an arm around Dorian's shoulders.

_If I was a sculptor, but then again, no  
Or a man who makes potions in a travelling show_

Blackwall was sitting on the bottom stair of the stage, holding a handful of roses.  He looked almost startled when the light came on above him but rallied quickly when Sera skidded in from off stage-left, obviously late for her cue.

_I know it's not much but it's the best I can do  
My gift is my song and this one's for you_

By this time Vivienne, in stunning sparkling gown, had joined Varric with her violin, looking as though this was the most serious concertina she'd ever performed.  Solas somewhat less so, engrossed as he was in peering at the sheet music over Varric's shoulder with a flute at his lips, but she could have sworn he was smiling.  Cole sat at Varric's feet with a tambourine - no real sense of rhythm, but the enthusiasm to make up for it.

The music swelled briefly into the familiar refrain, and a spot just in front of her was illuminated by a single spotlight from above.  Josephine pressed both hands to her mouth and for the first time in a decade dropped her clipboard, laughing out loud with tears streaming from her eyes to see Cassandra Pentaghast with a red rose boutonniere pinned to the pocket of her black waistcoat, standing at an old-fashioned microphone.

_And you can tell everybody this is your song  
It may be quite simple but now that it's done_

Everything else faded from her awareness, her eyes on the woman who meant the earth and moon, the heavens and stars.  Cassandra smiled, nervousness in every breath, but she didn't look away, and she didn't once miss a note.

 _I hope you don't mind_  
I hope you don't mind that I put down in words  
How wonderful life is while you're in the world

"Josephine Montilyet," she said, coming away from the microphone as the music continued to play in the background.  Automatically Josephine took the hand that reached for her, the other still pressed against her mouth, stifling a hiccupping sob when Cassandra dropped precisely to one knee.  _Such a traditionalist_ she thought, right before a red felt box was slipped out of Cassandra's pocket and opened to reveal a ring that she knew would fit her finger perfectly, diamond sparkling brilliantly under the lights.

"I know I may not be the easiest woman to live with," she started, a self-deprecation and hesitation in every word.  "I know I'm not always as diplomatic as maybe I should be.  But I promise to love you, fiercely, passionately, without reservation, if you-"

She stopped, licked her lips, smiled.  "Will you make me the luckiest woman in the world and agree to be my wife?"

"Yes," Josephine said, flinging herself into Cassandra's arms almost before she'd finished, half a dozen kisses scattered across her lips.  "A thousand, million times, yes." 

It was probably a good thing she hadn't gotten to that lipstick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really have no explanation for this one guys, except that the prompt was for a 'pretty, disney-esque proposal' and apparently this is what happened.


	5. Rhetoric (Mass Effect; Femshep/Miranda Lawson)

"Would you ever consider getting married?"

Miranda looks at her across the counter, gaze lingering pointedly on the heels propped up on its surface, before coming to her face.  Her eyes faintly narrow, once again asking why Shepard feels the need to put her feet on all the furniture.  Shepard smiles widely behind the rim of her coffee cup as though to say, _just to make you crazy_.

She looks good like this, Shepard thinks - the tousled hair, the too-large t-shirt sloping off one shoulder - and not just because it comes with a post-coital sort of glow.

Miranda is never sloppy, but there are moments when she unbuttons just enough to let the elegant sexpot veneer crack a little.  It's like that vase in Kasumi's room, the one with the turquoise terra cotta and all the cracks filled in with gold.

_Kintsukuroi._ She can't even say the name of the art form without sounding like a moron, but it sounds nice when Kasumi says it, and it makes her -

Well, she guesses she sees Miranda sort of like that.  Not _perfection_ , or whatever fucked up abstract notion of flawlessness that Henry Dickbag Lawson and That Cerberus Stooge have put into her head.  But that she, in her basic state, is beautiful.  And that occasionally cracks form and the wheels come off and she does the best she can with what she has.  The result is breathtaking, more beautiful for the scars.  Not like Shepard's, all landslides and fissures, but places marked by growth. 

Miranda is not the same woman she used to be.  Shepard loves her.

"In the legal sense?"

"In any sense," Shepard amends, fingers motionless on the side of her cup.  She has a hard time sitting still, but Miranda's attention will zero in on the restless movement like there are flashing neon casino signs pointed straight at it.  The galaxy is going tits up, it doesn't make a lot of sense to think about merging their assets (though there is a joke to be made there that will make Miranda roll her eyes into oblivion).  People are doing it in droves (stop it, Shepard), but the Normandy's crew - past, present, omnipresent - largely has other concerns.  "Emotional, metaphorical, mythological-"

"Rhetorical," Miranda cuts in.

"How would you be rhetorically married?"

"If you were looking to produce an effect, or make a statement.  It's more likely a marriage _proposal_ would be rhetorical.  If you were asking the question to make a point, rather than to elicit information."

Shepard's eyebrows lift and stay that way.  "Congratulations, Dr. Lawson.  You remain the smartest woman in the room."

 Miranda politely smirks, because she already knows.

Shepard clicks her teeth against the rim of her cup, considering.  She could stop now, just leave this here on the floor between them to maybe trip over later, but for all the creature comforts of Anderson's grand apartment, for all the ways that this could, in a different world, feel like a _home_ , she can never shake the sense that they are running out of time.  Whatever she has left, she isn't wont to waste it.

"Would you marry me?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

Miranda is still thick in the throes of banter, and though the immediate repartee makes her smile, Shepard pulls her feet off the counter and puts her cup down.  "No.  Would you?"

The grin on Miranda's lips immediately fades, shuttering into something serious.  Shepard expected this.  Her lover is not the sort of woman to make rash decisions, to make any lasting choice without consideration, weighing theory with careful experimentation.

"You know that I can't have children."

Not, _but the galaxy-_ , not _your job makes you a walking bullseye_ , not _we have unfinished business_ , but _you know that I can't have children_.

"And what, I'm going to stick my prodigious rhetorical dick in you and knock you up myself?"

"Shepard!"

"I'm just saying."  Miranda is frozen across from her, fingers clutching her teacup as though they’ve gone numb.  Shepard reaches across the marble and pries them lose, wraps them in her own.  "You know I've never cared about that.  I know _you_ care about it, but that isn't what I see when I look at you."

"What do you see, then, when you look at me."  Her voice is clipped, masking real emotion with condescension, but Shepard has spent enough of her life taking hits that she can recognize a pulled punch.

"Options."  The pale, slender fingers in hers bear down, tightening on gun-roughened skin.  She brings them to her mouth, kisses each upturned knuckle.  "Ones I wouldn't have if I hadn't found you."

The silence lingers, but it thaws by degrees.  Miranda says, softly, "Technically I found you."

"Then won't you keep me?" Shepard smiles, sticks her tongue out and pants like a dog so Miranda won't look so serious.  "I promise not to make a mess.  Well, maybe a small mess.  A small to medium sized mess."

" _You_ are a mess."

"I know.  I could use someone who already knows how to put me back together."  She pulls on the hands in hers, draws Miranda around the edge of the counter until she's standing between her knees.  She doesn't have a ring.  She wishes she did.  It's important, that kind of thing.  She sees the way Steve looks at his; something to hold on to, even after- 

"So what do you say, Dr. Lawson?  Wanna join Team Shepard?"

Miranda, for once completely befuddled, just laughs.  "I demand a raise.  But yes."


End file.
